Family, friends recall teen shooting victim

Mom still seeking to understand his violent death.

Brother Kenneth Jackson Jr., 22, and mother Tanya Harris, 47, hold a picture of Zhoemelli Jackson when he was 11 years old.
Courtesy Jackson family (it was a school picture). Zhoemelli was shot and killed Friday. JESSICA KWONG

Five days had passed since Zhoemelli Jackson, 17, was shot and killed. His blind mother still was walking from her East Side home to the convenience store two blocks away where he was gunned down.

“I'm going to walk there every day until I can't walk no more,” said Tanya Harris, 47. “Because I want to try to understand. ... Did he have tears? Was someone there to hold him? What type of pain he was in?”

She'd walked to the store at North New Braunfels Avenue and Nolan Street up to five times a day. On Monday night, 50 people joined her — family members and friends.

There, in front of the Handy Stop, she announced, “We are going to let these youths know we love them,” and placed blame for neighborhood crime on the rough environment many of them grow up in. “Love and unity to the youth. Take five minutes to tell them.”

Brandon Rubio, 19, accused of fatally shooting Jackson, said it was an accident and apologized after his arrest Saturday. Harris said she never held any anger toward him.

“I believe the baby that killed my son when he said he was sorry,” she said. “I think it was something that just got out of hand, and before he knew it, he took a life.”

County records show Rubio was charged with unlawfully carrying a weapon a year ago.

The two young men had been arguing in the store's parking lot about 3:45 a.m. Friday and Rubio had started walking to his car, but went back when Jackson said something and the argument became heated, according to an arrest warrant affidavit.

Rubio walked back to his vehicle a second time, then fired at Jackson three times, the affidavit states.

Jackson ran along the alley before collapsing, shot in his right chest and back left side, a San Antonio police report states. He was pronounced dead at the San Antonio Military Medical Center soon after.

A sophomore at Healy Murphy High School who loved rapping, drawing and skateboarding, Jackson had been master of ceremonies at a church event, and left behind three brothers, a sister and his five-months pregnant girlfriend, Di'shante Parker.

“I'm going to have our baby,” Parker, 18, said softly. “I'm going to miss him. His hugs. His kisses.”

Family members said Jackson always was smiling, and they would tease him because he had a smirk just like Elvis Presley.

His best friend, Trey Young, 18, said he was surprised by the killing because Jackson “had no beef with nobody.” He was “like a protector,” Young said, constantly inviting friends over to his house because “he know how dangerous it is” out on the streets at night.

Making the walk from Jackson's house to the store Monday night, family and friends hugged and held hands and candles.

Unable to see, Harris asked her husband: “How many people?”

“About 50,” he estimated.

“That's beautiful,” Harris said, in awe. “This is just the beginning. I'm going to be a child advocate, turn this negative into a positive.”